We played this game tonight for the first time, and quite enjoyed it. There were a few questions that we wanted to clarify.

Overall, when companies merge, do you ignore their limits as individual companies?

Specifically:1 - We had two Rice production companies that were one space away. Once they merge, can the production pieces from these sub-companies then touch, making one big production zone?

2 - When two shipping companies merge, is there any restriction as to where new boats can be placed (as long as new boats are adjacent to or in the same space as existing boats from the company)? I did see from another thread that you can add the numbers together for the maximum number of boats, so I would assume the answer is that there's no additional restrictions.

As an example, if a shipping company with only 1 boat, but a maximum of 4, merges with a shipping company that has all 4 of its boats on the other side of the board, can the larger company expand with 3 more boats, ending up with one sub-company with 7 boats and another with 1?

We played this game tonight for the first time, and quite enjoyed it. There were a few questions that we wanted to clarify.

Overall, when companies merge, do you ignore their limits as individual companies?

Basically yes - you treat it as one company, with the limits applied to that.

Quote:

Specifically:1 - We had two Rice production companies that were one space away. Once they merge, can the production pieces from these sub-companies then touch, making one big production zone?

Yes.

Quote:

2 - When two shipping companies merge, is there any restriction as to where new boats can be placed (as long as new boats are adjacent to or in the same space as existing boats from the company)? I did see from another thread that you can add the numbers together for the maximum number of boats, so I would assume the answer is that there's no additional restrictions.

As an example, if a shipping company with only 1 boat, but a maximum of 4, merges with a shipping company that has all 4 of its boats on the other side of the board, can the larger company expand with 3 more boats, ending up with one sub-company with 7 boats and another with 1?

There are no further restrictions - so a 7/1 scenario is possibly yes.

I don't understand the answer to this question. If two shipping companies merge you end up with one company - don't you? When two rice companies merge you end up with one larger company - don't you. For a shipping company formed from the merger of two shipping companies each with a capacity of 4 ships you end up with one company with a maximum shipping fleet of 8 ships - or have I missed something?

Hey, take it easy. Jeroen is one of the few designers that regularly answers questions. About the translation: what makes you assume it was translated? Splotter's native language is Dutch. However, there is no Dutch rulebook, so it could very well be that they either wrote it directly in German or in English. English being the preferred second language for most Dutchies, chances are pretty high that they wrote it directly in English. On the other hand there was one thing missing in the English version, which could mean they first wrote it in German.

Anyhow, I don't think the rules are badly written. They are well organized and relatively short. Okay, they oversaw some things, but then again, Splotter is a small company, with relatively small prints, what can you expect (now don't start talking about the price you paid, that you "can expect something of high quality for 60 Euros", already saw that one coming).

I do agree with you that Splotter should finish the promised FAQ. I know you guys have ordinary jobs, but that isn't an excuse for promising an FAQ at the end of October, which is still not available. Btw, Kenrick I think you can perfectly well play a game of Indonesia with the rulebook and the Q and A on these pages. If you still don't understand it, try reading my review .

While the promised FAQ would be nice, I don't think there will actually be too much new info in it. There have only been a few real issues that have cropped up, and all of these have been answered promptly by Jeroen on this forum.

Other questions (like Scott's, above) fall more into the "I assume this, but could you confirm.." category which any game will cause (no matter how detailed an FAQ exists).

Scott's question was based on a move I made in the game (five player with three fully concentrated on production, one dabbling in a bit of shipping, and my trying to be the ultimate shipping magnate). I had two shipping companies - each at different ends of the board (not initially contiguous). I merged them and played enough ships to bring them into a contiguous collection. Then, when the next phase arrived (and I could expand), I played a ship on the end of one group which exceeded that shipping cards individual count but not the sum of all cards in the company.

Our initial question was could we reallocate a ship played for one shipping card's count to the other shipping card so we could expand the former shipping card's sea areas. This is now a moot question since it is the simple sum of the cards allocated anyway you see fit with the only restriction being that the new ships must be contiguous with any ship from any of the cards in the company - hence the 7/1 from a 3card and 4card.

On a side note, we thought the game was playing out really quickly during the first two hours because we were quickly into phase c and expanding like lightning. We figured the game would bog down in the later rounds or we had really borked understanding the rules. Turns out we had it right and the final couple of rounds were real brain burners and fiddly.

While I sat around demanding my nickels (no thinking for the shipping magnate in the final rounds), I though it would have been better to use disk shaped wood markers (round and fairly flat) for the cities so the goods could be stacked on top. Things get real crowded in the final rounds.